Contents

BDCC Home

Welcome

Welcome to the "Dose Compliance Concentrations for Radionuclides in Buildings (BDCC) for Superfund" download and calculation website. The recommended BDCCs on this website are dose levels for contaminated buildings, to help implement the NCP and EPA CERCLA guidance. Additional EPA CERCLA guidance on addressing building contamination can be found here.

This tool presents recommended BDCCS calculated using suggested default input parameters and the latest dose conversion factors. In
addition, you may modify the input parameters to create site-specific BDCCS to meet the needs of your site, considering factors such as within the limitations of the underlying exposure scenarios, pathways and routes. To ensure accurate application of BDCCs, please see further guidance located in
the "User's Guide", "What's New", 'FAQ", and "Download Area" links. Below is a general description of how BDCCs can be used for situations involving radionuclides. The EPA has prepared a fact sheet for the general public that describes BDCC uses, BDCC calculator operation and landuses available for assessment. Additionaly, this fact sheet describes the BPRG and BDCC calculators in greater detail for EPA staff. The OSWER Directive, Superfund Radiation Risk Assessment: A Community Toolkit was also developed by the EPA to help the public understand more about the risk assessment process used at Superfund sites with radioactive contamination.

Introduction

The primary purpose of this recommended BDCC calculation tool is to assist risk assessors, remedial project managers, and others involved with dose assessment and decision-making at sites with contaminated buildings.

The Dose Compliance Concentrations for Radionuclides electronic calculator website may be used to determine doses for radioactively contaminated soil and water. The suggested standardized BDCCs are based on default exposure parameters and incorporate exposure factors that present RME conditions. This recommended database tool presents BDCCs in both activity per area and mass per area units. Dose conversion factors used are from EPA.

ARAR Dose Compliance Concentrations

Dose conversion factors (DCFs), or "dose coefficients", for a given radionuclide generally represent the dose equivalent per unit intake (i.e., ingestion or inhalation) or external exposure of that radionuclide. These DCFs normally are used to convert a radionuclide concentration in soil, air, water, or foodstuffs to a radiation dose. DCFs may be specified for specific body organs or tissues of interest, or as a weighted sum of individual organ dose, termed the effective dose equivalent. These DCFs may be multiplied by the total activity of each radionuclide inhaled or ingested per year, or the external exposure concentration to which a receptor may be exposed, to estimate the dose equivalent to the receptor.

CERCLA is NOT a Dose-Based Program.

It is EPA's recommendation that dose assessments generally are appropriate under CERCLA only where necessary to demonstrate ARAR compliance. Further, dose recommendations in guidance generally should not be used as to-be-considered material. For more information on this issue, please see page 2 of memo from Stephen D. Luftig Director Office of Emergency and Remedial Response and Stephen D. Page, Director Office of Radiation and Indoor Air to Regions on December 17, 1999 transmitting OSWER Radiation Risk Assessment Q & A's Final Guidance.

Also, in establishing cleanup levels at CERCLA sites, EPA generally does not consider ARARs greater than 15 mrem/yr to be sufficiently protective. Cleanup levels to ensure protectiveness that are not based on an ARAR normally should be based on the carcinogenic risk range (generally 10-4 to 10-6, with 10-6 as the point of departure and 1 x 10-6 used for BPRGs. For further guidance on this issue, refer to question 32 on page 13 of "Radiation Risk Assessment At CERCLA Sites: Q & A" (EPA 540/R/99/006, December 1999).